Slashdot Mirror
What Africa Really Needs To Fight Ebola
Lasrick writes Laura Kahn, a physician on the research staff of Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, writes that the high tech solutions being promoted to help fight Ebola in Africa will make no difference. What Africa really needs is anti-corruption efforts, now. "A case in point is Liberia, which has received billions of dollars in international aid for over a decade, with little to show for it. The country ranks near the bottom of the United Nation's Human Development Index and near the bottom of Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer. And while international aid groups and non-governmental organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and the International Medical Corps provide important humanitarian assistance and medical care, they also inadvertently absolve African political leaders from developing medical and public health infrastructures."
Right. It has always been a tradition for the top tribal leader to line his and his family's pockets.
Anti-corruption efforts are certainly important, especially in improving the economic conditions in a country. But focusing too strongly on just a single issue makes the problem seem unsolvable.
It is not.
World metrics have been improving steadily, some countries and regions faster than others, but systemic improvements have been dramatic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYpX4l2UeZg
What Africa really needs to fight Ebola is to stop traditional burial practices, such as allowing traditional healers to wash the dead body and then travel back to their home village and spread the contagion. Where there is one case, quarantine the village and cremate the deceased. To quote: "Ebola victims are most infectious right after death—which means that West African burial practices, where families touch the bodies, are spreading the disease like wildfire." In Guinea, 60% of all cases had been linked to traditional burial practices."